DayZ Breaks One Million Unique Players; Standalone Game Announced

What's one thing that Counter-Strike, Garry's Mod, and DotA all share in common? If you answered they were all free mods at one point in time you're correct. Now, DayZ has joined the elite list of mods that have made the transfer to a full standalone release, and all it took was three months of public release to earn a promotion.

Following the announcement that DayZ has hit one million unique registered players, Designer Dean Hall announced that he is now working on a complete standalone release. In terms of a pricing model, Hall posted the following:

The project [DayZ] will follow the Minecraft development model; fast iterations with the community alpha available for a heavily discounted price.

The standalone release will be headed by Bohemia Interactive, the same studio that made ARMA 2, DayZ's current platform of choice. Considering the new DayZ title is being made by the ARMA 2 development team, it's very likely that it'll run on the same engine, Real Virtuality 3. However, there is an ARMA 3 in development which utilizes an improved version of the engine that includes features such as DirectX 11 support, ragdoll physics, improved lighting, and underwater environments, features that could greatly benefit the experience of DayZ's atmospheric world full of zombies and intense survival.

If there's one thing I hope comes of this it's that DayZ will no longer be confined by a clunky interface and less-than-stellar gameplay. Maybe the improved engine will do the trick.